As part of ArtsHub‘s partnership with the Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF 2025) this year, we will again be sharing round-ups of some of the best reviews from the 2025 Funny Tonners.
As we did in 2024, this year the ArtsHub team will be judging the very best of all those reviews, as well as publishing selected entries here. So welcome to the three Funny Tonners for 2025, Jade Smith, Anna Stewart and Ben Lamb and here’s the next batch of reviews from them:
Abby Howells: Welcome to My Dream
Abby Howells’ show begins with a song choice that’s as eccentric as she is: Tiny Tims’ ‘Welcome to My Dream’. Yes, the song shares its name with Howells’ show, but as she herself acknowledges, sombre falsetto and twinkling ukulele are an unusual combination to start comedy show with. Yet, the tune sets the scene perfectly for the hour of idiosyncratic whimsy that’s about to unfold.
Welcome to My Dream follows Howells through a surprising number of personal controversies and feuds – from the catastrophic breakdown of her improv troupe to her miscasting as a mere chorus member in an amateur theatre production of Grease. Howells invites you to laugh along with her as she expresses her genuine sense of injustice at the world around her.
Throughout the show, Howells crafts an impressive network of callbacks. Rather than having them all come home to roost in one stacked denouement, she spaces them out across the show, allowing each of them to have their own well-deserved moment in the sun. It makes for an incredibly consistent show that had the crowd exhausted from laughter by its end.
Reviewed by Anna Stewart
Jude Perl: Jude Perl Tries to Finish a Sentence
Jude Perl is perhaps one of the best musical comedians working in Melbourne right now. I doubt I’m changing any hearts and minds by identifying that fact: it seems a foregone conclusion. Her songwriting is endlessly clever and evocative, her voice electrifying, and her stage presence full of an anxious charm that makes her impossible not to like.
Jude Perl Tries To Finish A Sentence is a meditation on identity and conviction. This is a show that I’m tempted to see a second time – if only because there were times that I felt I lost the thematic thread, and I’m desperate to know whether that was a fault of my own not-paying-attention, or whether there was a layer of murkiness in show’s thematic delivery. In either case – this show works both as a cohesive set of chapters building to a thematic conclusion, and as a more loosely connected family of sketches and songs. Highlights of this show included an impassioned musical defence of a controversial 90s sitcom that elicited some of the night’s best audience reactions, and a plot following Perl’s time as a wedding singer at a hilariously messy reception.
I’m always wary of comparing performers, and perhaps this comparison is tired – but Perl truly feels like a successor to the joke-telling, piano-playing, anxiety-fuelled juggernaut that is American comedian Bo Burnham. I make this comparison only to encourage all of my friends who I know consistently revisit Burnham’s work online to please broaden your horizons. Do yourself a favour by going to see Jude Perl: you won’t regret it, and you might just discover a new favourite performer.
Reviewed by Jade Smith
Kura Forrester: Here If You Need
Kura Forrester expertly weaves tales of dating, pillows, and dogs in Here If You Need, the first show at Melbourne’s Comedy Festival since 2019’s Billy T Award-winning Kura Shoulda Woulda.
It’s easy to see why Kura’s got a sold-out show tonight, her effervescent charm radiates through every joke, no matter how dirty they get. Kicking off with a recount of watching Saltburn with her mum, stories about Kura’s friends and family do make up much of the hour, but once you hear them, you’ll know why. It’s clear she has a lot of love and adoration for them all, which helped to bring a lot of warmth to the punchlines.
The show was broken up with fun performance pieces, like an image of her dog, a hilarious poem performed over Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’ and, to close out the show, a great live [version] of a conversation she had with her nine-year-old niece in a shopping centre.
Reviewed by Ben Lamb
Chris Parker: Stop Being So Dramatic!
Chris Parker was dancing to George Michael’s ‘Baby I’m Your Man’ when we entered the room. Remembering how utterly drenched Parker had become by the end of his MICF show last year, I was impressed by his willingness to court the danger of sweat once more. Parker is famous for his high-energy performances and his new show, Stop Being So Dramatic! does more than keep pace.
Parker ploughs through anxiety-inducing anecdotes in an earnest attempt to undermine the power of cringe. From learning ballet as a child to dancing with friends on a night out, there’s a lot that Parker has cut himself off from due to the cringing reaction of a third party. He also unpacks the source of his star-complex, eviscerates his former dance teachers and revels in imaginings of a simpler life, rearing children and brewing vegetable stock.
This is a show about the mid-30s condition that’s as relatable as it is hilarious.
Reviewed by Anna Stewart
Andrea Barello: Tonight! A Clown Who Wanted to be Loved?
Tonight! A Clown Who Wanted to be Loved? is a solo work by Italian clown Andrea Barello. The concept is simple: here’s a man. He’s a clown. And he wants to be loved.
Andrea Barello succeeded at my favourite type of clowning. It’s clowning that makes you feel childlike joy. It’s clowning that’s a hop, skip, and a jump away from playing pretend, in a way that most of us probably haven’t done since primary school. This show endeared itself to me at about the three-minute mark, when Barello set the tone by immediately jumping down into the audience, bringing us along with him for the bit.
And if that hadn’t hooked me: the moment I was pulled on stage as a character in the show would have done it. I was cast as The Clown’s first date, and I won’t spoil the jokes but this was immensely fun. Barello is an expert at non-verbal communication, and at making sure participation feels fun rather than forced.
On one hand, the 5:30pm time slot is unfortunate, because I think this would play well to a later night audience. But on the other hand, there’s a family-friendly earnestness about this show. I truly think it could be enjoyed by younger audiences as well as adults.
Like everything in this genre: this show won’t be for everyone. But I implore you to enter with an open mind, and a willingness to play along. And perhaps, you’ll leave with a feeling of warmth and a distinct sense that your life is better for having spent an hour in this room.
Reviewed by Jade Smith
Anirban Dasgupta: Cry Daddy
It’s always exciting when a comedian plays with the form. You’ve got an hour to kill with an audience you have to win over, so stand-ups are always trying some new and interesting ways to build their hour.
Cry Daddy brings us tales of Anirban’s life in India, his family, and love of sport. Anirban’s warm stage presence and understated delivery draws you into every word he says. He lights up when he moves into talk about sport, which leads into a meta game of Audience versus Anirban, where he tries to win a game of comedy like it’s a match.
It wouldn’t be fair to spoil the entire conceit, but thanks to Anirban’s love of cricket and dream of being a sports star, he brings it into his comedy, earning points for good jokes, and losing points for the bad. It’s a clever idea, expertly crafted, and brought to life in a fun way.
Jokes returned once the game was laid out, but jokes about suicide and trauma seemed to fall flat in comparison to other areas, but it seemed to be a deliberate attempt to alienate us, so he could win us back with a stellar joke to cut the tension, which he did with great effect.
Reviewed by Ben Lamb
See the first and second batches of Funny Tonne reviews here and here.
